Come-on Hobie!!
It doesn’t take that much forethought to properly engineer the sidekick mounting hardware; I figured it out the second I tried sliding the AMA arms into the center tube. Obviously someone didn’t think that someone would ever mount a sidekick on a tandem like the Oasis in the middle where the hull gunnels are wider then the rear. If I chose the rear seat to mount the sidekick at it would interfere with the cart Trax II storage and not allow for optimum stabilization. Ive seen pictures of the sidekicks mounted in the middle of an oasis and the instructions don’t give a clue as to where the mounting options are for the different models, it just says “behind the seat”…. Which seat??
Many here have mounted these in the middle of a tandem and I’m guessing had to modify it to do so. The hardware should accommodate this option, shouldn’t it?
If you bolt the mounts inboard as far as the gunnels will allow the tubing will land just over the mid point of the hold down rings which will not allow the AMA tubes to slid all the way in and click.
All you had to do was make the center tube ½ inch longer!!!
Is that too much to ask? How could you not notice this before?
At the very least take the lazy route and modify the instructions to say that you must mount behind the rear seat on a tandem.
Now I have to modify the mounts by grinding a shoulder in them or make a new center bar (24 ½ in) from stock, I expect more for a $170.00.